HANCOCK COUNTY — More than two decades ago, Brandee Bastin helped create a Hancock County Tobacco Control Program in the county. This week, the coalition celebrated 15 years of Hancock County having a smoke-free community.
During an annual awards and recognition luncheon Wednesday at NineStar, Bastin noted that one of the most important things in building a successful coalition is to pause and show appreciation.
“We like to bring everyone together, from the kids in high school who are part of the VOICE program to the people in the coalition, at least once a year we want to get together and reflect as well as reward those who give,” Bastin said.
Bastin and others who spoke during the luncheon said the county is actually one of the top in the state to fight for fresh-air for county residents.
“I’ve been in the coalition since day one, and I remember at the time when we got started and folks were like, ‘You’ll never have success in getting places to go smoke-free,’ but, little by little, it caught on,” Bastin said.
Joel Hungate, the executive director of Hancock Well Being and Employer Strategy for Hancock Health, gave the opening remarks and said they’re fortunate to support and be a part of one of the highest-functioning coalitions in the state.
“There is a lot to celebrate, but the work is not done,” Hungate said. “We have the mandate to make Hancock County the healthiest county in all of Indiana, and we do that by creating access to the amenities, the support, the infrastructure of well-being, and to the stakeholders in this room we’re connecting the dots that other communities have not and that makes a difference.”
The goal, Hungate said, is for people to be healthier just by being in Hancock County.
“That’s a vision that touches everything,” Hungate said. “We want to be a model for other communities in the nation.”
Part of the celebration included an awards ceremony where the tobacco coalition recognized people who have helped the group spread the word about the dangers of tobacco use this year and beyond.
Bastin handed out an Employer Champion Award to Vernon Township and thanked its leadership in the community for setting an example as a government entity and for the workplace in general.
“Thank you for your leadership,” Bastin said.
The Volunteer Award went to Russ Jarvis, the Chaplain for Hancock Health who is retiring this year. Bastin told the crowd Jarvis has been a part of the coalition for some 20 years and has blessed the community as a whole by volunteering at numerous community events.
“Thanks so much to everyone,” Jarvis said. “I have a personal history of family who would still be here had they had this type of community support at the time. We’ve got to keep this fight going. There are a lot of lives to save.”
The Advocacy Award went to Jim Bever, a longtime Greenfield-Central principal who is now leading G-C Junior High School. Bastin said Bever was one of the first district educators in the county to understand the importance of getting the information on the dangers of tobacco use into the county schools. Bastin said Bever also understood the importance of getting students support to help them quit.
“When I was a kid growing up in this community, you could not go anywhere without the haze of smoke,” Bever said. “This group, those who are before us, they’ve taken on an uphill battle. The tobacco lobby at the time this was started was an incredibly powerful foe, but not so much anymore.”
Years ago, Bastin started a movement to get VOICE, Indiana’s student led statewide initiative to eliminate teen smoking, into the county high schools. She has since gotten the program into the junior high schools. Two of the 14 VOICE seniors, Taryn Smith from Greenfield-Central and Allissa Smithson from Eastern Hancock, also spoke during the luncheon and were recognized for their hard work.
Bastin credited the Hancock County Health Department for enacting a smoke-free ordinance years ago, allowing Greenfield and other surrounding cities to lead the way years ago to create smoke-free communities, and she’s thankful.
“It was really unprecedented in our state, what the Hancock County Health Department did,” Bastin said. “By them taking that leadership role, they’ve protected everyone.”
The whole idea behind the creation of the coalition was to help future generations not have to choose between a paycheck and their health and now they don’t. Still, Bastin notes there is work to do.
“We still have trends among some youth with vaping, and that’s concerning,” Bastin said. “Over the past several years, producers have gotten creative adding flavors to make it more inviting, but there is a misperceptions that it is healthier or a safer version of smoking, when it is not.”
The number of teens vaping has grown even higher than smoking numbers since Bastin has been fighting the issue, and she said that is troubling.
“Yes, we are making strides,” she said “People are quitting smoking, but we’ve got more work to do.”
